Page 22 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
“What’s this movie about again?” Ian asks.
“It’s a holiday movie,” I say.
“LikeDie Hard?”
“Imagine the opposite ofDie Hard.”
Disappointed, Ian eats a handful of microwave popcorn mixed with Goldfish crackers. I agreed to let him stay up and watch with Henry and me under the strict condition that he first state for the record that men shouldn’t be allowed to trade women. He’s excited, I can tell, because this is something different, and so many of our nights are the same. Harry Styles is excited, too. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he knowssomethingis going on, so he keeps attacking the Swiffer pole.
“Will you stop it!” I tell him. Then I realize that I’m kind of excited, too. This could be…fun?
“But isn’t it kinda late to have a friend over?” asks Ian.
“Who are you, the cops?”
He’s not wrong, though. When I hung up the phone, it dawned on me that inviting a virtual stranger to the house might not be the safest decision I could make. I was worried about him, though. Here on Grief Island, it’s the little things that get you: a favorite song, a movie they loved, an old jacket hung on a hook.
For example, I still haven’t opened Tim’s work laptop. The school’s IT director, LeRoy, dropped it off a few days after the funeral. Apparently Tim had saved about a million pictures on the hard drive that LeRoy thought I might like to have. It’s been on my nightstand ever since, just waiting to mess me up.
There’s a noise outside. Harry Styles’s ears shift to alert mode, and I gently take his snout in my hand. “Dude, don’t,” I say because Bella is asleep.
To his credit, instead of barking, Harry Styles releases a soft cry that sounds like an old woman screaming into a throw pillow.
“Good boy.”
When I open the front door, Henry looks startled on our stoop. “Oh,” he says. “Hi.”
Then the dog shoots through my legs and happily jumps on him.
“ ’Ello, mate,” says Henry in an okay British accent as he crouches to pet the dog.
Ian is at my hip now.
“Hi,” says Henry. “Ian, right?”
“Yes. Hi.”
Henry gives me a once-over. “You weren’t kidding about the sweatpants, huh?”
“I never kid about sweatpants,” I say. “Look at you wearing jeans. You going to the Met Gala later or something?”
“My tux is at the cleaners,” he says.
Henry stops petting the dog and stands, so Harry Styles headbutts him in the shin.
“He likes you,” says Ian. “He’s not always this nice to people.”
This is a bald-faced lie—Harry Styles is an absolute whore for love—but it’s sweet that Ian is emotionally aware enough to get that this guy could use a win. Jeans, canvas sneakers, a sweatshirt that’s a little too big. I’m warming to my mom’s assessment of Henry—he really is cute in his own way. But Jesus does he look sad.
“I like your tree,” he says, peeking in through the door.
“Thanks,” I say. “We put it up yesterday. It’s basically December, right?”
“Why aren’t there any lights or ornaments at the bottom, though?”
We all look at the barren bottom third of our tree. I’m realizing now that the whole thing lists to the right.
“We tried,” I say. “But Harry Styles can’t be trusted.”
